Scots
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Iona and the Vikings
The island of Iona lies on the edge of Scotland. Its eastern side is less than a mile from the south-western tip of the isle of Mull, and if you were to sail due west from the other side, the next piece of land would not be encountered for some 2,000 miles (one of the Continue reading
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Arrival of the Northmen
The portentous weather and astronomical events we looked at in Bad Weather, Bad Omens continued into the last decade of the 8th century with what is perhaps the most infamous of all happening in the year 793. Recounted in a number of sources[1] the gist is that there were flashes of fire in the skies Continue reading
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Kings in the North
The Northern Monarchies in the late 8th Century. In the last article I looked at some of the descriptions of bad weather and bad omens from the second half of the 8th century in northern Britain. This post will look at the political landscape during that time, not an easy task with the Irish Annals Continue reading
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Bad Weather, Bad Omens
In the years following the death of Onuist, King of Picts, in 761, the sources contain much less about Pictish affairs than we saw in the first half of the century. However any gaps seem to be filled with descriptions of the weather – and particularly bad weather – along with astrological and natural or Continue reading
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Picts, Britons and Anglo-Saxons: The Supremacy of Onuist, Part II
By the year 741, the land north of the Forth-Clyde line, including that of the Dal Riadan Scots, was under the authority of Onuist, King of the Picts. To the south lay the territories of the two other powers of the time: the Northumbrian English and the Strathclyde Britons. This post will take a brief Continue reading
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Picts and Gaels: The Supremacy of Onuist, Part I
In 723, finally successful after years of striving to become overking of Dal Riada, Selbach had been the latest ruler to enter a clerical life. We last mentioned him in the post Nechtan mac Derilei: King Naiton of the Picts just as he handed over power to his son Dungal, before moving on to events Continue reading
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Nechtan mac Derilei: King Naiton of the Picts
The Pictish Civil War Part II As set out in last post on here, the figure generally known as Nechtan became in 706 the second of Derilei’s sons to sit on the Pictish throne. Unlike his brother, Bridei, he is described in the sources as king of Picts (not Fortriu)[1]. The name Nechtan is the Continue reading
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Derilei, Mother of Kings
The Pictish Civil War Part I As with the European royal families in more recent times, the ruling classes on the island of Britain in the period before the formation of Scotland and England were often linked by birth. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria had risen to prominence in the 7th century and many of Continue reading
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The British Isles at the end of the 7th Century
Bede writes of the five different languages being spoken in northern Britain in the 8th century. These are the languages of the Anglorum, Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum et Latinorum*. The first four of these link to distinct groups of people (the English, The Britons, The Scots and The Picts), while the last one is of course Continue reading
The Northern Tapestry 